Baking | Eggsellent Easter Mini Egg Brownies

April 14, 2014

These brownies have got the Eggs-Factor

(sorry, lots more Easter egg puns to come….)

My favourite thing about Easter is definitely the amazing amount of baking opportunities it brings. No matter how you view the Easter holiday, whether you’re religious or not, there’s no doubt about the fact that chocolate now forms a huge part of the celebrations.CadburysMini Eggs are my favourite of these seasonal treats so, inspired by the amazing Sarah over at Taming Twins, I decided to make MINI EGG BROWNIES!

Sarah has an amazing looking recipe for her Filthy Fudgey Easter Brownies, but I didn’t have some of the ingredients so decided I’d use my tried and tested brownie recipe and add Mini Eggs and Milkybar Mini Eggs to the mix for an Easter twist. The recipe I’m going to give here is actually from Smitten Kitchen (which you can find here) and it’s by far the easiest and most successful brownie recipe I’ve ever used.

I was so pleased with the way the brownies turned out – they were a deliciously fudgey consistency with a slightly crisped, flakey top. The mini chocolate eggs worked really well, and it was nice to have the crunch of their shells as well as the mix of dark chocolate brownie with milk and white chocolate eggs. When the brownies were warm the eggs were so soft and melty, and even once everything had cooled down they remained quite soft, so no sudden surprises of nearly broken tooth as you bite into a solid candy shell (I had a bad incidence with a refrigerated Mini Egg topped Rice Krispy nest once….ouch!) I made these for my favourite chicks on a girls weekend and everyone said they were eggsellent!

So, on to the eggs-iting bit….

Ingredients

140g butter

250g sugar

65g high quality cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

65g plain white flour

Cadburys Mini Eggs

MilkybarMini Eggs

Method

1) Cube the butter and add it to a heatproof bowl with the cocoa powder, sugar and salt.

2) Put the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure that the bottom of the bowl is not actually touching the surface of the water (this will cause the mixture to burn).

3) Stir the mix until all the butter has melted and everything is incorporated together. The mix should be warm enough that you want to remove your finger from it pretty quickly after dipping it in to test! It will look quite grainy.

4) Take the bowl off the heat and mix in the vanilla extract. Now add one of the eggs. Stir vigorously until it’s all incorporated and then add in the second egg and stir again. The mix should be smooth and shiny now.

5) Add in the sieved flour and stir until completely mixed in. The mixture should now be much thicker.NOTE: If you’re making normal brownies, this would be the time to add in nuts.

6) Give your mixture another 40 stirs. No this is not a joke, nor an annoying pointless step as I first thought! It really does thicken up the mix even further and helps give your brownies an amazingly thick, gooey and fudgey consistency. Nom nom nom

7) Pour the mix into a cake tin lined with baking parchment.

8) Add your mini chocolate eggs! I used CadburysMini Eggs and Milkybar White Chocolate Mini Eggs but you could use any type you like. Lay them out quite evenly and press them into the brownie mixture. If you’re using a small tin you may have enough mixture to lay over the top of the eggs so they’re buried inside each piece. I didn’t have enough and thought they looked really cute and colourful peeping through the top of the brownies.

9) Pop them in the oven on 160oC for approximately 20-25 minutes. I recommend checking them at about 15-17 minutes and seeing how they’re getting on. Test them by inserting a sharp knife and when you pull it out it should still have a little bit of mix attached. They should have a crispy top.

10) Once the brownies have cooled, turn them out onto a baking rack. Cut into squares, serve and devour!

Super simple and super tasty – my kind of baking 🙂

Will you be doing any baking this Easter? Let me know if you make these!